Dora
"My very first memory is a promise he broke" ''-''Dora, talking about Morpheus in The Sandman Universe (2018), issue #1. Dora is a character co-created by Simon Spurrier and Neil Gaiman in The Dreaming, a series of comics released in 2018 by Vertigo that unfolds after the events of The Sandman's main story arc. She is a resident of the Dreaming, although her origin is still uncertain. It is known that she first appeared right before Morpheus's death, with no memories of her past and withouth any knowledge of who or what she is. Because of this, she is very lonely and prefers to stay away from other dream entities, even though she seems to enjoy meeting people through their dreams. Although distrustful and disrespectful towards the other denizens of the dream realm, Dora eventually starts working with them to destroy Judge Gallows, a nightmare that is set free by Mervyn Pumpkinhead and takes control of The Dreaming after Daniel resigns and abandons his realm. When the battle with Judge Gallows is over and a new entity is born to repair the damages caused by Dream's absence, Dora goes on a hunt with the crow, Matthew, fo find the Dream Lord, not only to help restore The Dreaming to it's regular state, but also to find out about her past and unlock all of her memories. Appearance Dora is usually depicted as young and pretty woman, probably in her early twenties. She has short, dark hair and often wears casual, even sloppy clothes, not caring much about her looks. She likes to wear simple t-shirts, brown pants and suspenders, sometimes with a long sleeved flanel shirt on top. She has a set of white wings sprouting from where her ears should be, although it has not been made clear if she can actually fly with them. Despite her soft complexion, Dora can transform herself in a huge monstress, with bloody eyes, long teeth, and sharp claws. It seems she is able to transform herself at any moment, although she's particularly inclined to do so whenever she is angry or scared, as a means of self-preservation. Personality and Background Due to her lack of memories and her absolute uncertainty about her origins and purpose, Dora is a lonely and grumpy girl. She resents Dream for promising that she didn't need to be scared anymore, since apparently he wasn't able to fulfill that promise. Also, it appears that Dora already existed before in some other "dreadful and beautiful" form, but all her memories previous to her "creation" were lost or erased at some point. She doesn't know who she is or even why she is, as Matthew at one point indicates that, in The Dreaming, sometimes these two questions are one in the same. In fact, for some reason, Dora doesn't believe she is real, and that is her greatest weekness. Everytime that subject is brought up to her, she becomes helpless and scared, not being able to cope with that. Eventually, Mervyn Pumpking head tells her that, in The Dreaming, no one gets to tell her how real she is. This ends up helping Dora regain some of her trust and, with the help of the other dream entities, she's able to defeat Judge Gallows. Every day, she receives a gift from The Dreaming: a hairless barbie doll, a book with the final chapters missing, the first bars of a lullaby in the wrong key etc. For some reason, the gifts please her, but she's not quite sure why. At some point, Dora starts believing that those gifts are little parts of her memory that Dream hid in form of common objects to help her regain conscious of who or what she was. Later in the story, Dora finds out that Mervyn Pumpkinhead was responsible for making the gifts. These trinkets were not her memories, in fact, just objects that were broken but still had some meaning and value to her. The message Morpheus tried to convey to Dora was that broken things are not necessarily worthless. This helped her understand that, even though she's been through something awful that broke her spirit, she still has value and is worthy of love and respect. She also has an insatiable hunger, which implies that she's not actually a dream or a nightmare, but something else entirely (since the Dreaming's residents don't need actual food to survive). Although she's been invited to the castle to feast, she prefers to visit real people's dreams and eat their food, because, in her own words, the residents of The Dreaming always want something in return. Powers Dora has the ability to visit any dream and also to cross through realms without effort, by creating portals which more people can cross with her (for instance, she traveled from The Dreaming to Destruction's domain with Lucien, and also from The Dreaming to Hell with Matthew). She can also push away dream entities from people's dreams. Another power she has is the abillity to observe the waking world through the dreams she visits. She can tell what's happening in the room where the dreamer sleeps and what the people in there are feeling and thinking. In her monstress form, Dora gains an impressive body strength, being able to defeat strong foes with a single hand. These powers are very unusual and seem to impress all the residents of The Dreaming, although not even Dora is able to explain how or why she can do those things. Category:Other Beings